Trentonian Editorial: Saving the GOP's soul

Republican Gov. Chris Christie stands at a gathering in Hillsborough, N.J., Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, to open a stretch of highway named for Peter J. Biondi, who was an Assemblyman from 1998 until his death in 2011. Christie will face Democratic candidate, Barbara Buono in an election Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Gov. Christie is the only Republican in existence right now who has a media cheering section.

It’s just a temporary thing.

Should he get the GOP presidential nomination, his media fans will abandon him faster than a snap of the fingers. When it comes time for lining up with the GOP or Democratic nominee, that’ll be no choice at at all for the media.

If you doubt it, ask John McCain.

And it will be even less of a choice for the media if, as widely supposed, the Democratic nominee is Hillary Clinton.

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For now, though, the Christie media cheering section sees the governor as the only candidate who can save the soul of the Republican Party from the devil.

The GOP, see, has become a hotbed of homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic sin. Only Christie can cast out the Cruz, Santorum and Tea Party demons that have taken possession of the party’s soul.

So the cheering section right now is chanting, “Go,Christie, go! Show ‘em some of that old-time Teddy Roosevelt Republicanism!”

But, alas, there’s a symbolic sentinel guarding the portal to the GOP nomination. Picture that sentinel as Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” couple — the painting of the unsmiling old guy with a pitchfork standing next to his equally dour spouse.

You have to get past the American Gothic duo in early primaries like Iowa’s and South Carolina’s to get anywhere near the GOP nod.

Can Christie pass muster on the American Gothic orthodoxy and fervor scale?

In the battle for the GOP soul, those are the questions on not a few Republican minds. “Let’s see the bona fides!” the congregations out in Iowa and down in South Carolina likely will be shouting.

Ted Cruz is saying: “Hey, look! I can do all three! At once!”

Remember — speaking now a little less metaphorically — Mitt Romney insisted he was a pro-life fellow. He was a clean-living man of faith. But the wrong faith. And many of the GOP right faith declined to show up at the polls, even to vote against the anathematized Barack Obama.

Long story short, Romney garnered even fewer votes than John McCain did and was rendered toast just like he was.

Of course, Christie is a persuasive guy. He just might win over the GOP’s American Gothic sentinel. Who knows?

But the way many mulish Republicans see it, the more the media cheer him on, the more reason that is for them not to.